Quote:
Nyhan had 948 survey participants read an article from 2009 about Palin’s statement on death panels. Some had favorable opinions of the former governor of Alaska; others did not. The respondents ran the gamut in their knowledge of current politics.
All read a story about Palin’s 2009 statement, which brought death panels into the mainstream debate. Some had this correction appended to the end of the story:
Nonpartisan health care experts have concluded that Palin is wrong. The bill in the House of Representatives would require Medicare to pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling sessions, but there is no panel in any of the health care bills in Congress that judges a person’s “level of productivity in society” to determine whether they are “worthy” of health care.
For Palin supporters and opponents alike, low-information voters’ belief in the death panels decreased after reading this correction.
But something different happened among high information voters. Those with cold feelings towards Palin acted like the low information voters, with their belief in death panels dropping.
For high information Palin supporters though, the correction backfired: They appeared more likely to believe in death panels after reading the appended information, and have less favorable opinions of the Affordable Care Act.